A sunny day at the Cricket

Time to wake up says Mr F, it is 5.30 am Saturday May 25^th and I am struggling to open my eyes. However the sun is up and shining and the promise of a good day’s cricket soon has me up & about. We are going to watch England V New Zealand at Headingly. This is Ian’s Christmas present, well all good things are worth waiting for.

A speedy journey has us in Leeds for 9 o’clock and soon we are at the ground. Clear blue sky and the promise for it to remain so all day. It is however a tad nippy and our seats are at present in the shade. I keep myself amused by taking photo’s whilst we wait for play to start.

 I have managed to get very good seats, well they will be when the sun finally moves round. We are right where the players enter & leave the field and they come along in front of us to sign autographs for the kids, which are wildly excited at seeing the England players. I manage to get some good close ups. Mostly the players just frantically sign the ever increasing line of people and stop occasionally to have a photo taken. Stuart Broad however is chatting away to the kids, how he likes their shirt, when was his / her birthday. Hope they enjoy the cricket etc. etc. Bet his mum is really proud of him, such a nice boy.

Root

Who?

Swann

Broad

Finn

Jimmy Anderson is signing autographs just below us. A woman asks a steward “who is that player?” is she mad?? How can you like cricket & not know who Jimmy is. I did check & she was not blind. Later on she was also checking on her iPhone what Joe Roots name was. A Yorkshire lad and he had just scored his first test 100. She was flummoxed as the crowd were singing Joe Root to the tune of hey Jude. His name is Joe not Jude she says, I don’t know why they are singing hey Jude (er they are not). I felt like explaining it to her but then realised it would be in vain. She seemed content enough as she shoved another slice of cake in her mouth which had the added bonus of stopping her inane conversation for a few minutes.

The crowd in the west stand were on form and a fabulous beer snake made an appearance late in the afternoon. Cries of “feed the snake, feed the snake” rang out. There was frenzied activity whilst more pint glasses were drained and added to the plastic reptile. However, I was again glad not to be sitting anywhere near them as the beer was dripping out all over the crowd and when they got bored with the snake, they just threw it up in the air. Beer and glasses literally raining down.

Lots of people were in fancy dress, strangely no Jimmy Savills this year (See last Augusts post) wonder why that is? Bandy legged men in silky wedding dresses, lots of where’s Wally’s and some people dressed as bananas with Alex Ferguson masks on. I don’t get that one. It was very sedate & all about cricket where we were sitting. I do find the goings on amusing but some people do not. One couple said they should call the police and get them all evicted from the ground. I can understand people, me included, do not want to get drenched in stale beer and it is all a bit distracting if you want to watch the match. But they are only having a bit of fun, evict them from the ground Really?

We had a lovely day, caught a few rays of sunshine, imbibed in a couple of beers / Prosecco and a really nice picnic, (despite the lack of pork pies.)

Late we met up with Jeremy & Nic for a drink and then went to the Olive Tree for a really lovely dinner. Back to hotel and was soon was fast asleep as a bit tired after all that excitement.

Looking forward to next year already